Monday, November 5, 2018

Inspired by the Japanese woodblock print The Great Wave by Hokusai, I wanted to create some glass waves.

My finished fused glass waves.

These beautiful fused glass waves were created with bits of glass frit and powdered glass. Frit is made by crushing sheet glass and then sorting it into similar size groupings. I purchase my frit already sorted into jars cause that makes it easy. Bullseye glass in Portland offers the frit in four granulations; coarse, medium, fine and powder.

Glass frit and powdered glass.

To create each glass wave, I carefully arrange the glass frit and powder on transparent glass and temporarily fix it with hairspray. This makes it easier to transfer the painting from my desk to the kiln. The glass painting is then heated in the kiln to 1400 degF for 15 minutes to create a contoured finish.